The present invention relates to an auger-type icemaker for making chip ice by rotating a scraper auger to scrape off ice grown on an inner wall surface of a refrigerated cylinder and compressing the scraped ice in passages defined between an upper bearing for the scraper auger and the refrigerated cylinder, and more particularly to a construction of such an upper bearing.
Auger-type icemakers generally include a refrigerated cylinder having an inner wall surface for growing ice thereon and an upper bearing supporting an auger rotatably in the refrigerated cylinder and having peripheral surfaces extending parallel to or spaced at a constant width from the inner wall surface, the peripheral surfaces serving as portions of passages for compressing ice as it is fed by the auger. Such auger-type icemakers are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,372,558 and Japanese Patent Publication No. 40-3876. The known auger-type icemaker however is disadvantageous in that scraped ice cannot be compressed sufficiently and no hard chip ice of high quality can be produced. According to a recent proposal, leaf springs are mounted on the upper bearing to render the ice compression passages progressively smaller upwardly (see Published unexamined Utility Model Application No. 54-101651, for example). However, such an arrangement is complex in structure and the leaf springs tend to be deformed or broken.